Chapter 23World War II: The War Against Japan

In World War II, for the first time, the United States had to fight a war on
two fronts. Though the central strategic principle governing allocation of resources
to the two fronts provided for concentrating first on the defeat of the European
Axis, on the American side this principle was liberally interpreted, permitting
conduct of an offensive war against Japan as well as against Germany in the
years 1943-45. The U.S. Fleet, expanding after its initial setback at Pearl
Harbor much as the Army had, provided the main sinews for an offensive strategy
in the Pacific, although the Army devoted at least one-third of its resources
to the Pacific war, even at the height of war in Europe. In sum, the United
States proved capable, once its resources were fully mobilized, of successfully
waging offensives on two fronts simultaneously--a development the Japanese had
not anticipated when they launched their attack on Pearl Harbor.

Japan's Strategy

Japan entered World War II with limited aims and with the intention of fighting
a limited war. Its principal objectives were to secure the resources of Southeast
Asia and much of China and to establish a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere" under Japanese hegemony. In 1895 and in 1905 Japan had gained important
objectives without completely defeating China or Russia and in 1941 Japan sought
to achieve its hegemony over East Asia in similar fashion. The operational strategy
the Japanese adopted to start war, however, doomed their hopes of limiting the
conflict. Japan believed it necessary to destroy or neutralize American striking
power in the Pacific--the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Far
East Air Force in the Philippines--before moving southward and eastward to occupy
Malaya, the Netherlands Indies, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, the Gilbert
Islands, Thailand, and Burma. Once in control of these areas, the Japanese intended
to establish a defensive perimeter stretching from the Kurile Islands south
through Wake, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Marshalls and Gilberts
to Rabaul on New Britain. From

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Map 42: The Pacific Areas, 1 August 1942

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Rabaul the perimeter would extend westward to northwestern New Guinea and would
encompass the Indies, Malaya, Thailand, and Burma. Japan thought that the Allies
would wear themselves out in fruitless frontal assaults against the perimeter
and would ultimately settle for a negotiated peace that would leave it in possession
of most of its conquests. (Map 42)

The Japanese were remarkably successful in the execution of their offensive
plan and by early 1942 had reached their intended perimeter. But they miscalculated
the effect of their surprise attack at Pearl Harbor which unified a divided
people and aroused the United States to wage a total, not a limited, war. As
a result Japan lost, in the long run, any chance of conducting the war on its
own terms. The Allies, responding to their defeats, sought no negotiated peace,
but immediately began to seek means to strike back. In February and March 1942
small carrier task forces of the Pacific Fleet hit the Marshalls, Wake, and
Marcus, and bombers from Australia began to harass the Japanese base at Rabaul.
In April Army bombers, flying off a naval carrier, delivered a hit-and-run raid
on Tokyo. Meanwhile, the United States began to develop and fortify a line of
communications across the southern Pacific to Australia and to strengthen the
defenses of the "down-under" continent itself. These new bases, along
with Alaska, Hawaii, and India, also strengthened during the period, could become
the launching points for counteroffensives. And once the Allies became strong
enough to threaten the Japanese defensive perimeter from several directions
the Japanese would lose the advantage of interior lines, and with it the strategic
initiative, for Japan did not have and could not produce the means to defend
and hold at all points.

Perceiving their danger, the Japanese in a second phase offensive tried to
sever the Allied lines of communications to Australia and to expand their perimeter
in the Pacific. In the spring of 1942 they pushed southeast from Rabaul to Guadalcanal
and Tulagi in the Solomons, and seized Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians. But
they failed in their main effort to take Midway Island, northwest of Hawaii,
and in the naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in May and June they lost
the bulk of their best naval pilots and planes. Midway was the turning point,
for it redressed the naval balance in the Pacific and gave the Allies the strategic
initiative. The Japanese, with the mobility of their carrier striking forces
curtailed, abandoned plans to cut the Allied South Pacific life line and turned
instead to strengthening their defensive perimeter, planning to wage a protracted
war of attrition in the hope of securing a negotiated peace.

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Guadalcanal and Papua: The First Offensives

After Midway the U.S. Joint Chiefs, responsible for direction of the war in
the Pacific, almost naturally turned to the elimination of the threat to their
line of communications in the south as the objective of their first offensive.
In so doing, they gave to American strategy in the Pacific a twist unanticipated
in prewar planning, which had always presupposed that the main offensive in
any war against Japan would be made directly across the Central Pacific from
Hawaii toward the Philippines. The Joint Chiefs on July 2 directed Allied forces
in the South and Southwest Pacific Areas to begin a series of operations aimed
at the ultimate reduction of the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul on New Britain
Island, thus establishing Allied control of the Bismarck Archipelago.

The campaign would consist of three stages or tasks. In Task One, forces of
the South Pacific Area (under Vice Adm. Robert L. Ghormley until November 1942
and thereafter under Admiral William F. Halsey) would seize base sites in the
southern Solomons. In Task Two, South Pacific forces would advance up the ladder
of the Solomons while Southwest Pacific forces (under General MacArthur) would
move up the north coast of New Guinea as far as Lae and Salamaua. In Task Three,
the forces of the two theaters would converge on Rabaul and clear the rest of
the Bismarck Archipelago. Task One was to be conducted under the general supervision
of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, whose vast Pacific Ocean Areas command included
the North, Central, and South Pacific Areas as subtheaters. Tasks Two and Three
would be executed under the strategic direction of General MacArthur. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff, reserving to themselves final control of the assignment of
tasks, allocation of resources, and timing of operations, would provide, in
effect, unified command over Nimitz and MacArthur.

The offensive began on August 7, 1942, when the 1st Marine Division landed
on Guadalcanal and nearby islands in the southern Solomons. The Japanese, taking
full advantage of interior lines from their bases at Rabaul and Truk, reacted
vigorously. Six times from August to the end of November they challenged American
naval superiority in the South Pacific in a series of sharp surface engagements.
Air battles were almost daily occurrences for a month or more after the landings,
and the Japanese sent in strong ground reinforcements, gambling and ultimately
losing substantial air and naval resources in the effort to hold Guadalcanal.
The Americans had to reinforce heavily, deploying naval power, planes, soldiers,
and marines in the battle at the expense of other theaters. Before the island
was secured in November, another Marine

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Map 43: The New Guinea Area

division (the 2d), two Army divisions (25th and Americal), and one separate
regiment, to mention only the major ground combat elements, had been thrown
into the battle. The last act came in February 1943, when the 43d Division moved
into the Russell Islands, thirty-five miles northwest of Guadalcanal. On Guadalcanal
and in the Russells, American forces then began to construct major air and logistical
bases for further advances.

A Japanese overland drive toward Port Moresby in New Guinea had meanwhile forced
General MacArthur to begin an offensive of his own--the Papua Campaign. (Map
43) During the late summer the Japanese had pushed across the towering Owen
Stanley Mountains toward Port Moresby from the Buna-Gona area on New
Guinea's northeastern coast, and by mid-September were only twenty miles from
their objective. Australian ground forces drove the

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Japanese back to the north coast, where they strongly entrenched themselves
around Buna and Gona. It took 2 Australian divisions, 1 U.S. Army division (32d),
and another U.S. Army regiment almost four months of bitter fighting to dislodge
the Japanese. Casualties were high, but as at Guadalcanal the Allied forces
learned much about jungle fighting, the importance of air power, and the need
for thorough logistical preparation. They also discovered that the Japanese
soldier, though a skillful, stubborn, and fanatic foe, could be defeated. The
myth of Japanese invincibility was forever laid to rest in the jungles of Guadalcanal
and Papua.

After Papua and Guadalcanal the tempo of operations in the South and Southwest
Pacific Areas slowed while General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey gathered resources
and prepared bases for the next phase. The Japanese, in

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turn, undertook to reinforce their main bases in New Guinea and the northern
Solomons. In March 1943 they attempted to send a large convoy to Lae in New
Guinea but, in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, lost some 3,500 troops and much
valuable shipping, principally to Army land-based aircraft. During the following
months Rabaul-based planes, reinforced by carrier planes flown in from the Carolines,
sought unsuccessfully to knock out American air power in the southern Solomons.

Search for a Strategy

Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1943, a strategy for the defeat of Japan
began to take shape within Allied councils. The major Allied objective was control
of the South China Sea and a foothold on the coast of China, so as to sever
Japanese lines of communications southward and to establish bases from
which Japan could first be subjected to intensive aerial bombardment and naval
blockade and then, if necessary, invaded. The first plans for attaining
this objective envisioned Allied drives from several different directions--by
American forces across the Pacific along two lines, from the South and Southwest
toward the Philippines and from Hawaii across the Central Pacific; and by
British and Chinese forces along two other lines, the first a land line through
Burma and China and the second a sea line from India via the Netherlands Indies,
Singapore, and the Strait of Malacca into the South China Sea. Within the framework
of this tentative long-range plan, the U.S. Joint Chiefs fitted their existing
plans for completion of the campaign against Rabaul, and a subsequent advance
to the Philippines, and developed a plan for the second drive across
the Central Pacific. They also, in 1942 and 1943, pressed the Chinese and British
to get a drive under way in Burma to reopen the supply line to China in phase
with their Pacific advances, offering extensive air and logistical support.

The North Pacific line running from Alaska through the Kuriles to the northernmost
Japanese island of Hokkaido also beckoned in early 1943 as a possible additional
avenue of approach to Japan. The Joint Chiefs decided, however, that although
the Japanese perimeter should be pushed back in this area, the foggy, cold North
Pacific with its rock-bound and craggy islands was not a profitable area in
which to undertake a major offensive. In May 1943 the U.S. 7th Division went
ashore on Attu and, after three weeks of costly fighting through icy muck and
over wind-swept ridges in a cold, almost constant fog, destroyed the Japanese
garrison. In August a combined American-Canadian expedition landed on Kiska,
some distance away, only to find that the Japanese had evacuated the island
three weeks earlier. With the Japanese perimeter pushed back to the Kuriles
the Allied advance stopped, and further operations

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were limited to nuisance air raids against these Japanese-held islands. Ground
forces used in the attacks on Attu and Kiska were redeployed to the Central
Pacific, and some of the defensive forces deployed in Alaska were also freed
for employment elsewhere.

Prospects of an advance through China to the coast faded rapidly in 1943. At
the Casablanca Conference in January the Combined Chiefs agreed on an ambitious
operation, called ANAKIM, to be launched in the fall of 1943 to retake Burma
and reopen the supply line to China. ANAKIM was to include a British amphibious
assault on Rangoon and an offensive into central Burma, plus an American-sponsored
Chinese offensive in the north involving convergence of forces operating from
China and India. ANAKIM proved too ambitious; even limited offensives in Southeast
Asia were postponed time and again for lack of adequate resources. By late 1943
the Americans had concluded that their Pacific forces would reach the China
coast before either British or Chinese forces could come in through the back
door. At the SEXTANT Conference late in 1943 the Combined Chiefs agreed that
the main effort against Japan should be concentrated in the Pacific along two
lines of advance, with operations in the North Pacific, China, and Southeast
Asia to be assigned subsidiary roles.

In this strategy the two lines of advance in the Pacific--the one across the
Central Pacific via the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, Carolines, and Palaus
toward the Philippines or Formosa (Taiwan) and the other in the Southwest Pacific
via the north coast of New Guinea to the Vogelkop and thence to the southern
Philippines--were viewed as mutually supporting. (Map 44) Although the
Joint Chiefs several times indicated a measure of preference for the Central
Pacific as the area of main effort, they never established any real priority
between the two lines, seeking instead to retain a flexibility that would permit
striking blows along either line as opportunity offered. The Central Pacific
route promised to force a naval showdown with the Japanese and, once the Marianas
were secured, to provide bases from which the U.S. Army Air Forces' new B-29
bombers could strike the Japanese home islands. The Southwest Pacific route
was shorter, if existing bases were taken into consideration, and offered more
opportunity to employ land-based air power to full advantage. The target area
for both drives, in the strategy approved at SEXTANT, was to be the Luzon-Formosa-China
coast area. Within this area the natural goal of the Southwest Pacific drive
was the Philippines, but that of the Central Pacific drive could be either the
Philippines or Formosa. As the drives along the two lines got under way in earnest
in 1944, the choice between the two became the central strategic issue.

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Map 44: The Philippine Area

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Cartwheel: The Encirclement of Rabaul

In June 1943 MacArthur and Halsey resumed their offensive to reduce the Japanese
stronghold at Rabaul--a prerequisite to further advances along the Southwest
Pacific axis toward the Philippines. The plan for the campaign provided for
a carefully phased series of operations in each theater, each designed to secure
a strategic position where air cover could be provided for further advances.
The first of the series started in late June when MacArthur landed American
troops on the Woodlark and Kiriwina Islands off eastern New Guinea and at Nassau
Bay on the New Guinea coast, and Halsey's forces made their first landings on
the New Georgia group in the Central Solomons. From these beginnings the operations
proceeded up the ladder of the Solomons, along the coast of New Guinea, and
across the straits to New Britain Island generally as scheduled, despite strong
Japanese reaction.

In the Solomons by early August Army forces under Halsey had secured New Georgia
with its important Munda airfield, but the campaign was not completed until
October when U.S. and New Zealand troops occupied Vella Lavella, between New
Georgia and Bougainville. At the end of October, New Zealanders and U.S. marines
landed on Treasury and Choiseul Islands to secure bases for the assault on Bougainville;
that assault got under way on November I when marines landed, followed soon
after by the Army's 37th Division. In each phase of the Solomons campaign, the
Japanese sought unsuccessfully to contest Allied air and naval supremacy, to
land reinforcements, and to launch strong counterattacks against Allied
beachheads, losing in the effort both planes and combat ships they could ill
afford to spare. Air and naval losses suffered in the Solomons crippled the
Japanese Fleet for months to come and helped to pave the way for the successful
Central Pacific drive that got under way in November. With the repulse of the
Japanese counterattack on Bougainville, by the end of November security of the
American beachhead on that island was assured, permitting the development of
a major American air base. With the taking of Bougainville, the main part of
the South Pacific Area's task in Operation CARTWHEEL was completed.

MacArthur's forces meanwhile continued their offensives, with Australian troops
carrying most of the burden in New Guinea. In early September the U.S. Army's
503d Parachute Regiment, in the first airborne operation of the Pacific war,
seized an airfield at Nadzab, inland from Lae and Salamaua. Australian troops
cleared Lae and Salamaua by mid-September and, flown into Nadzab, moved on to
the Huon peninsula. Elements of the U.S. 32d Division landed-at the western
end of the peninsula in January 1944 in an attempt to trap

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a large Japanese force, but by the time Australian and American units had sealed
the western exits to the peninsula most of the Japanese had escaped northwest
to Hansa Bay and Wewak.

In the meantime, MacArthur and Halsey had assembled the forces to launch a
final offensive toward Rabaul, but the Joint Chiefs decided that the actual
seizure of that objective would be too costly in terms of men, equipment, and
time. They preferred to encircle Rabaul, neutralize it by air bombardment, and
push on to seize an offensive base farther west, in the Admiralty Islands. A
new series of operations toward these ends started in MacArthur's theater on
December 15, 1943, when U.S. Army units landed on the south coast of western
New Britain, and on the 26th, the 1st Marine Division landed on the north coast.
In mid-February 1944 New Zealand troops of the South Pacific Area secured an
air base site on Green Island, north of Rabaul, and on the last day of the month
MacArthur began landing the 1st Cavalry Division (an infantry unit retaining
its former designation) on the Admiralties, closing the western and northwestern
approaches to Rabaul. Marines under Halsey seized a final air base site on Emirau,
north of Rabaul, on March 20, while Marine and Army units under MacArthur secured
additional positions in western and central New Britain from March to May 1944.
The major Japanese base at Rabaul, with its 100,000-man garrison, was as effectively
out of the war as if it had been destroyed. In the process of encircling Rabaul,
the Allies had also left to wither on the vine another important Japanese base
at Kavieng on New Ireland, north of Rabaul.

In the last phase of the campaign against Rabaul, a pattern developed that
came to characterize much of the war in the Pacific. The Allies would mount
no frontal attacks against strongly entrenched Japanese forces if they could
avoid it; they would not advance island by island across a vast ocean studded
with myriad atolls and island groups. Rather, they would advance in great bounds,
limited only by the range of land-based air cover or the availability of carrier-based
air support. The Allies would deceive and surprise the Japanese; they would
bypass major strongpoints and leave them reduced to strategic and tactical impotence.

The Central Pacific Drive Begins

The necessity for relying primarily on support of land-based aircraft curtailed
the length of the jumps in the South and Southwest Pacific in 1943. The Navy's
limited supply of aircraft carriers could not be employed to best advantage
in the narrow waters around New Guinea and the Solomons. By mid-1943, however,
new larger and faster carriers of the Essex class (27,000 tons) and lighter
carriers of the Independence class (11,000 tons) were joining the Pacific

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Fleet. Around these new carriers Admiral Nimitz built naval task forces tailored
in each case to the particular operation at hand. The task forces consisted
of a mix of carriers, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, submarines, minesweepers,
and support craft. In the broad expanses of the Central Pacific, these air carrier
task forces could provide both air and naval support for far longer leaps forward,
while the entire Pacific Fleet stood ready to confront the main Japanese Fleet
at any time it chose to give battle.

The Central Pacific drive got under way on November 20, 1943, when Nimitz sent
Army and Marine forces to the Gilbert Islands to seize bases from which to support
subsequent jumps into the Marshalls. Troops and supplies for the Gilberts loaded
at Hawaii on newly developed assault shipping and sailed more than 2,000 miles
to be set ashore by specially designed landing craft and amphibian vehicles.
Makin, the Army objective, fell to the 27th Division after four days of hard
fighting. Tarawa, where the ad Marine Division went ashore, proved a bloody
affair that provided a stiff test for American amphibious doctrine, techniques,
and equipment. Naval gunfire vessels and carrier-based aircraft-provided support
during and after the assault.

The advance to the Gilberts disclosed that U.S. forces had not entirely mastered
certain aspects of amphibious warfare, especially naval gunfire support, co-ordination
of air support, and ship-to-shore communications. But valuable lessons were
learned that, added to the earlier experiences of the South and Southwest Pacific
Areas, established a pattern of island warfare which represented one of the
major tactical developments of the war. First, air and naval forces isolated
an objective and softened its defenses; simultaneously, joint forces would attack
or feint toward other islands to deceive the Japanese. The approach of convoys
carrying the ground assault forces to the main objective signaled the opening
of final, intensive air and naval bombardment of the landing beaches. Whenever
practicable, small forces occupied neighboring islands as sites for land-based
artillery. Under cover of all these supporting fires, the landing forces moved
from ship to shore in echelons, or waves, rocket-firing landing craft in the
lead and amphibian tanks and tractors following to carry the assault troops
directly onto the beaches and inland. Finally came landing craft with more infantry
and with tanks, artillery, and supporting troops. Supplies followed rapidly
as the assault forces secured and expanded the beachhead. Amphibious techniques
were refined and modified to some extent after the Gilberts, but the lessons
learned there made it unnecessary to effect any radical changes in amphibious
doctrine throughout the rest of the war.

The Japanese did not react strongly to the loss of the Gilberts, and at the
end of January 1944 Nimitz' Army and Marine forces moved into the eastern

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and central Marshalls to seize Majuro and Kwajalein. The strength employed
in this operation proved so preponderant and Japanese defenses so weak that
Nimitz was able to accelerate his next advance by two and a half months, and
on February 17 landed Marine and Army units on Eniwetok Atoll in the western
Marshalls. Concurrently, he conducted a long-awaited carrier strike against
Truk in the central Carolines, considered Japan's key bastion in the Central
Pacific. The raid revealed that the Japanese had virtually abandoned Truk as
a naval base, and the capture of the atoll, set for June, no longer appeared
necessary. Nimitz then drew up plans to invade the Marianas in mid-June and
move on to the western Carolines and Palaus in mid-September, again accelerating
the pace of the advance.

Acceleration of the Pacific Drive

General MacArthur had also pushed forward the Southwest Pacific Area's timetable.
Having landed in the Admiralties a month ahead of his original schedule, he
proposed to cancel operations against Hansa Bay and Wewak on the northeast coast
of New Guinea in favor of a jump to Hollandia and Aitape, on the north-central
coast, in April, two months earlier than previously planned. He would then continue
northwestward along the coast in a campaign entailing the steady extension of
land-based air cover by the seizure of successive air base sites until he reached
the Vogelkop, at the eastern end of New Guinea, and then proceed to Mindanao,
southernmost of the Philippine Islands.

The Joint Chiefs, quickly seizing the fruits of their strategy of opportunism,
on March 12, 1944, rearranged the schedule of major Pacific operations. They
provided for the assault by MacArthur's forces on Hollandia and Aitape in April
with the support of a carrier task force from the Pacific Fleet, to be followed
by Nimitz's move into the Marianas in June and into the Palaus in September.
While Nimitz was employing the major units of the Pacific Fleet in these ventures,
MacArthur was to continue his advance along the New Guinea coast with the forces
at his disposal. In November, he was again to have the support of main units
of the Pacific Fleet in an assault on Mindanao. Refusing yet to make a positive
choice of what was to follow, the Joint Chiefs directed MacArthur to plan for
the invasion of Luzon and Nimitz to plan for the invasion of Formosa early in
1945.

The March 12 directive served as a blueprint for an accelerated drive in the
Pacific in the spring and summer of 1944. On April 22 Army forces under MacArthur
landed at Hollandia and Aitape. At neither place was the issue ever in doubt,
although during July the Japanese who had been bypassed at Wewak

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launched an abortive counterattack against Aitape. Protected by land-based
aircraft from Hollandia, MacArthur's Army units next jumped 125 miles northwest
on May 17 to seize another air base site at Wakde Island, landing first on the
New Guinea mainland opposite the chief objective. A ground campaign of about
a month and a half ensued against a Japanese division on the mainland, but,
without waiting for the outcome of the fight, other Army troops carried the
advance northwestward on May 27 another 180 miles to Biak Island.

As this point the wisdom of conducting twin drives across the Pacific emerged.
The Japanese Navy was preparing for a showdown battle it expected to develop
off the Marianas in June. MacArthur's move to Biak put land-based planes in
position to keep under surveillance and to harry the Japanese Fleet, which was
assembling in Philippine waters before moving into the Central Pacific. Reckoning
an American-controlled Biak an unacceptable threat to their flank, the Japanese
risked major elements of their fleet to send strong reinforcements to Biak in
an attempt to drive MacArthur's forces ok the island. They also deployed to
bases within range of Biak about half their land-based air strength from the
Marianas, Carolines, and Palaus--planes upon which their fleet depended for support
during the forthcoming battle off the Marianas.

After two partially successful attempts to reinforce Biak, the Japanese assembled
for a third try enough naval strength to overwhelm local American naval units;
but just as the formidable force was moving toward Biak the Japanese learned
the U.S. Pacific Fleet was off the Marianas. They hastily assembled their naval
forces and sailed northwestward for the engagement known as the Battle of the
Philippine Sea. Having lost their chance to surprise the U.S. Navy, handicapped
by belated deployment, and deprived of anticipated land-based air support, the
Japanese suffered another shattering naval defeat. This defeat, which assured
the success of the invasions of both Biak and the Marianas, illustrates well
the interdependence of operations in the two Pacific areas. It also again demonstrated
that the U.S. Pacific Fleet's carrier task forces were the decisive element
in the Pacific war.

Army and Marine divisions under Nimitz landed on Saipan in the Marianas on
June 15, 1944, to begin a bloody three-week battle for control of the island.
Next, on July 21, Army and Marine units invaded Guam, 100 miles south of Saipan,
and three days later marines moved on to Tinian Island. An important turning
point of the Pacific war, the American seizure of the Marianas brought the Japanese
home islands within reach of the U.S. Army Air Forces' B-29 bombers,
which in late November began to fly missions against the Japanese homeland.

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At Biak Japanese resistance delayed capture of the best airfield sites until
late June. On July 2, MacArthur's Army forces moved on to Noemfoor Island, ninety
miles to the west, in a combined parachute-amphibious operation designed to
broaden the base of the Southwest Pacific's air deployment. On July 30 the 6th
Division continued on to the northwestern tip of New Guinea to secure another
air base, and on September 15 MacArthur landed the reinforced 31st Division
on Morotai Island, between New Guinea and Mindanao in the Philippines. On the
same day Nimitz sent the 1st Marine Division ashore on Peleliu in the southern
Palaus, and on the 17th the 81st Division from Nimitz' command landed on Angaur,
just south of Peleliu. A regimental combat team of the 81st Division secured
Ulithi Atoll, midway between Peleliu and the Marianas, without opposition on
September 23.

With these landings the approach to the Philippines was virtually completed.
The occupation of Morotai proved easy, and the island provided airfields for
the support of advances into the Philippines and Indies. The Pacific Fleet employed
Ulithi as a forward anchorage. Hard fighting dragged on in the Palaus through
November, but as the result of another acceleration in the pace of Pacific operations
these islands never played the role originally planned for them.

In twin drives, illustrative of the principles of maneuver, objective, economy
of force, surprise, and mass, the Allied forces of the Pacific had arrived in
mid-September 1944 at the threshold of their strategic objective, the Luzon-Formosa-China
coast triangle. In seven months MacArthur's forces had moved forward nearly
1,500 miles from the Admiralties to Morotai; in ten months Nimitz' forces had
advanced over 4,500 miles from Hawaii to the Palaus. The time had now arrived
when a final choice had to be made of the main objective in the target
area.

The Decision To Invade Luzon

During the summer of 1944, as the battles raged along both lines of advance,
the strategic debate over the choice of Luzon versus Formosa also waxed hot.
General MacArthur argued fervently that the proper course was to move through
the Philippines to Luzon, cutting the Japanese lines of communications southward,
establishing a base for bombardment and invasion of Japan, and fulfilling a
solemn national obligation to liberate the Philippine people. Admiral Ernest
J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, just as adamantly insisted that the war
could be shortened by directing the Pacific advance from the Marianas and Palaus
toward Formosa, the China coast, and Japan proper, seizing only the essential
positions in the southern and central Philippines necessary to

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render air support for these advances. The arguments for Formosa were cogent
enough. Its strategic position made it a better island steppingstone to the
China coast or the Japanese home islands, a position from which Japanese communications
to the south could be cut more effectively than from Luzon, and a closer-in
position from which to conduct strategic bombardment. But it also could prove
to be a more difficult position to take, and Nimitz did not have in his theater
sufficient Army supporting and service troops, without reinforcement, to sustain
a land campaign on the island. It might be difficult, too, to mount an invasion
of Formosa as long as the Japanese could, from strong positions on Luzon, interfere
with the Allied line of communications. Another consideration involved the real
value of a foothold on the China coast. By the early fall of 1944, air base
sites in east China Prom which the Allies had hoped to support Pacific operations
and bomb Japan appeared irretrievably lost, and the Marianas already provided
bases for the B-29's almost as close to Tokyo as Formosa. The need to seize
and develop a port on the China coast thus lost much of its urgency, and the
argument that Formosa was the best steppingstone to China became less compelling.
Then, too, a successful invasion of either Luzon or Formosa required some concentration
of forces from the two theaters. It was far easier to shift highly mobile naval
resources in Nimitz' theater to the Philippines than it was to redeploy Army
troops from the Southwest Pacific to support Nimitz' invasion of Formosa and
the jump to the China coast with which he hoped to follow it.

At the time of the Morotai and Palaus landings, MacArthur's plans for invasion
of the Philippines called for a preliminary assault in southern Mindanao on
November 15, 1944, to secure air bases for the support of a larger attack at
Leyte, in the east-central Philippines, on December 20. He would follow this
with a large-scale assault on Lingayen Gulf in February 1945. Nimitz meanwhile
planned to mount an invasion of Yap in the Carolines in October 1944 and then
would prepare to launch his attack on Formosa as soon afterward as the
elements of the Pacific Fleet required for operations in the southern and central
Philippines could be returned. Obviously, there had to be a choice between Luzon
and Formosa, for the Pacific Fleet would be required to support either operation.

The course of events went far to dictate the final choice. In mid-September
Admiral Halsey's carrier task forces providing strategic support for the
Morotai and Palaus operations struck the central and southern Philippines. Halsey
found Japanese air strength unexpectedly weak and uncovered few signs of significant
ground or naval activity. On the basis of Halsey's reports, MacArthur and Nimitz
proposed to the Joint Chiefs a move directly to Leyte in October,

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bypassing Mindanao. Nimitz agreed to divert to the Leyte invasion the 3-division
corps then mounting out of Hawaii for the assault against Yap. The Joint Chiefs
quickly approved the new plan, and the decision to invade Leyte two months ahead
of schedule gave MacArthur's arguments to move onto Luzon almost irresistible
force. MacArthur now reported that he could undertake the invasion of Luzon
in December 1944, whereas all the planners' estimates indicated that resources
for an invasion of Formosa--particularly service troops and shipping-- could not
be readied before February 1945 at the earliest. Nimitz proposed to shift the
Central Pacific attack northward against Iwo Jima in the Bonins in January 1945
and then against Okinawa and other islands in the Ryukyus early in March. On
October 3, Admiral King bowing to the inevitable, accepted the new plans and
the Joint Chiefs issued directives to MacArthur for the invasion of Luzon on
December 20 and to Nimitz for the invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa early in
1945.

Pacific strategy had been cast into almost its final mold. In the end, the
China coast objective disappeared entirely from planning boards. Final plans
for the defeat of Japan envisaged gradual tightening of the ring by blockade
and bombardment from the Marianas, Philippines, and Ryukyus with an invasion
of the home islands to be mounted from these bases.

The Philippines Campaign

The main assault at Leyte took place on October 20, 1944, as four Army divisions
landed abreast in the largest amphibious operation yet conducted in the Pacific.
Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid, MacArthur's naval commander, controlled the amphibious
phases, including naval gunfire support and close air support by planes based
on escort carriers. Ground forces were under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, commanding
the U.S. Sixth Army; land-based air forces of the Southwest Pacific Area in
general support were commanded by Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney. MacArthur himself
exercised unified command over the air, ground, and naval commanders. The fast
carrier task forces of the Pacific Fleet, providing strategic support, operated
under the control of Admiral Halsey, who reported to Nimitz, not MacArthur.
There was no provision for unified naval command, and Halsey's orders were such
that he could make his principal mission the destruction of the Japanese Fleet
rather than the support of MacArthur's entry into the Philippines.

The Japanese had originally planned to make their stand in the Philippines
on Luzon, but the invasion of Leyte moved them to reconsider, since they now
decided that the entire Philippine Archipelago would be strategically lost if the

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Unloading Supplies on a Leyte Beach

U.S. Army secured a foothold in the central islands. They therefore began sending
ground reinforcements to Leyte; increased their land-based air strength in the
Philippines in the hope of destroying Allied shipping in Leyte Gulf and maintaining
local air superiority; and dispatched their remaining naval strength to Leyte
Gulf to destroy Kinkaid's invasion fleet and to block Allied access to the Philippines.
The ensuing air-naval Battle of Leyte Gulf was the most critical moment of the
campaign, and proved one of the most decisive actions of the Pacific war.

Admiral Halsey, without consulting MacArthur or Kinkaid, pulled the bulk of
his carrier forces northward to intercept part of the Japanese Fleet, leaving
Leyte Gulf open to other Japanese Fleet units. Gallant, desperate action by
Kinkaid's old battleships and escort carrier planes turned back the Japanese
in the gulf, assuring the safety of the landing forces. It had been a close
thing, clearly demonstrating the dangers of divided command. In the end, however,
the combined operations of Kinkaid's and Halsey's forces virtually eliminated
the Japanese Navy as a factor in the Pacific war.

With the Leyte beaches secure, U.S. Army units proceeded to destroy the Japanese
ground forces. Miserable weather bogged down the pace of operations, made supply
difficult, delayed airfield construction, curtailed air support, and permitted
the Japanese to continue to ship reinforcements to the island. The reinforcement
program came to a sudden halt early in December when the 77th Division executed
an amphibious envelopment on Leyte's west coast,

--517--

General MacArthur and Members of His Staff Wading Ashore at Leyte

and by late December the Sixth Army had secured the most important sections
of the island, those required for air and logistical bases. Japanese troops
in the mountains of northwestern Leyte continued organized resistance well into
the spring of 1945, occupying the energies of large portions of Lt. Gen. Robert
L. Eichelberger's newly formed Eighth Army.

While the fight on Leyte continued, MacArthur's forces moved on to Luzon only
slightly behind schedule. The first step of the Luzon Campaign was the seizure
of an air base in southwestern Mindoro, 150 miles south of Manila, on December
15, 1944, two Army regiments accomplishing the task with ease. The invasion
of Luzon itself started on January 9, 1945, when four Army divisions landed
along the shores of Lingayen Gulf. Command arrangements were similar to those
at Leyte, and again fast carrier task forces under Halsey operated in general
support and not under MacArthur's control. Within three days five Army divisions,
a separate regimental combat team, two artillery groups, an armored group, and
supporting service units were ashore and had begun a drive down the Central
Plains of Luzon toward Manila. The Japanese were incapable of naval intervention
at Lingayen Gulf, and their most significant reaction was to throw a number
of kamikaze (suicide plane) attacks against Kinkaid's naval forces for four
days.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commanding Japanese forces in the Philippines,
did not intend to defend the Central Plains--Manila Bay region, the strategic
prize of Luzon. Knowing he would receive no reinforcements and

--518--

believing the issue in the Philippines had been decided at Leyte, he sought
only to pin down major elements of MacArthur's forces in the hope of delaying
Allied progress toward Japan. For this purpose he moved the bulk of his troops
into mountain strongholds, where they could conduct a protracted, bloody defensive
campaign. But Japanese naval forces on Luzon, only nominally under Yamashita,
decided to ignore this concept in favor of defending Manila and Manila Bay.
Thus, when U.S. Army units reached Manila on February 3, it took them a month
of bitter building-to-building fighting to root out the Japanese. Meanwhile,
operations to clear Manila Bay had begun with a minor amphibious landing at
the southern tip of Bataan on February 15. The next day a combined parachute-amphibious
assault, involving two Army regiments, initiated a battle to clear Corregidor
Island. Other forces cleared additional islands in Manila Bay and secured the
south shore. By mid-March the bay was open for Allied shipping, but an immense
salvage and repair job was necessary before the Allies could fully exploit Manila's
excellent port facilities.

The reinforced 38th Division had landed meanwhile near Subic Bay and had cut
across the base of Bataan peninsula to prevent the Japanese from holing up on
Bataan as had MacArthur's forces three years earlier. The 11th Airborne Division
undertook both amphibious and parachute landings in southern Luzon to start
clearing that region, and the 158th Regimental Combat Team made an amphibious
assault in southeastern Luzon to secure the Bicol peninsula. Turning against
the Japanese mountain strongholds, MacArthur continued to pour reinforcements
onto Luzon, and the land campaign there ultimately evolved into the largest
of the Pacific war. MacArthur committed to Luzon ten divisions, two regiments
of another division, and three separate regimental combat teams. Guerrillas
also played a large role. One guerrilla unit came to substitute for a regularly
constituted division, and other guerrilla forces of battalion and regimental
size supplemented the efforts of the Army units. Moreover, the loyal and willing
Filipino population immeasurably eased the problems of supply, construction,
and civil administration.

Except for a strong pocket in the mountains of north central Luzon, organized
Japanese resistance ended by late June 1945. The rugged terrain in the
north, along with rainy weather, prevented Krueger's Sixth Army from applying
its full strength to the reduction of this pocket. Eichelberger's Eighth Army
took over responsibility for operations on Luzon at the end of June and continued
the pressure against Yamashita's force in the last-stand area, but they held
out there until the end of the war.

While Sixth Army was destroying Japanese forces on Luzon, Eighth Army ultimately
employed five divisions, portions of a sixth division, a separate

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U.S. Paratroopers Dropping on Corregidor

regimental combat team, and strong guerrilla units in its campaign to reconquer
the southern Philippines. This effort began when a regimental combat team of
the 41st Division landed on Palawan Island on February 28, 1945. Here engineers
built an air base from which to help cut Japan's line of communications to the
south and to support later advances in the southern Philippines and the Indies.
On March 10, another regimental combat team of the 41st, later reinforced, landed
near Zamboanga in southwestern Mindanao, and soon thereafter Army units began
moving southwest toward Borneo along the Sulu Archipelago. In rapid succession
Eighth Army units then landed on Panay, Cebu, northwestern Negros, Bohol, central
Mindanao, southeastern Negros, northern Mindanao, and finally at Sarangani Bay
in southern Mindanao, once intended as the first point of re-entry into the
Philippines. At some locales bitter fighting raged for a time, but the issue
was never in doubt and organized Japanese resistance in the southern Philippines
had largely collapsed by the end of May. Mopping up continued to the end of
the war, with reorganized and re-equipped guerrilla forces bearing much of the
burden.

The last offensives in the Southwest Pacific Area started on May 1 when an
Australian brigade went ashore on Tarakan Island, Borneo. Carried to the beaches
by landing craft manned by U.S. Army engineers, the Australians had air support
from fields on Morotai and in the southern Philippines. On June 10

--520--

an Australian division landed at Brunei Bay, Borneo, and another Australian
division went ashore at Balikpapan on July 1 in what proved to be the final
amphibious assault of the war.

Iwo Jima and Okinawa

Since slow-base development at Leyte had forced MacArthur to delay the Luzon
invasion from December to January, Nimitz in turn had to postpone his target
dates for the Iwo Jima and Okinawa operations, primarily because the bulk of
the naval resources in the Pacific--fast carrier task forces, escort carrier
groups, assault shipping, naval gunfire support vessels, and amphibious assault
craft--had to be shifted between the two theaters for major operations. The alteration
of schedules again illustrated the interdependence of the Southwest and Central
Pacific Areas.

The Iwo Jima assault finally took place on February 19, 1945, with the 4th
and 5th Marine Divisions, supported by minor Army elements, making the landings.
The 3d Marine Division reinforced the assault, and an Army regiment ultimately
took over as island garrison. The marines had to overcome fanatic resistance
from firmly entrenched Japanese, who held what was probably the strongest defensive
system American forces encountered during the Pacific war, and it took a month
of bloody fighting to secure the island. In early March a few crippled B-29's
made emergency landings on Iwo; by the end of the month an airfield was fully
operational for fighter planes. Later, engineers constructed a heavy bomber
field and another fighter base on the island.

The invasion of the Ryukyus began on March 26 when the 77th Division landed
on the Kerama Islands, fifteen miles west of Okinawa, to secure a forward naval
base, a task traditionally assigned to marines. On April 1 the 7th and 96th
Divisions and the 2d and 6th Marine Divisions executed the assault on the main
objective, Okinawa. Two more Army divisions and a Marine infantry regiment later
reinforced it. Another amphibious assault took place on April 16, when the 77th
Division seized Ie Shima, four miles west of Okinawa, and the final landing
in the Ryukyus came on June 26, when a small force of marines went ashore on
Kume Island, fifty miles west of Okinawa. Ground forces at Okinawa were first
under the U.S. Tenth Army, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner commanding. When General
Buckner was killed on June 18, Marine Lt. Gen. Roy S. Geiger took over until
General Joseph W. Stilwell assumed command on the 23d.

The Japanese made no attempt to defend the Okinawa beaches, but instead fell
back to prepared cave and tunnel defenses on inland hills. Bitterly defending

--521--

every inch of ground, the Japanese continued organized resistance until late
June. Meanwhile, Japanese suicide planes had inflicted extensive damage
on Nimitz' naval forces, sinking about 25 ships and damaging nearly In more
in an unsuccessful attempt to drive Allied naval power from the western
Pacific. Skillful small unit tactics, combined with great concentrations of
naval, air, and artillery bombardment, turned the tide of the ground battle
on Okinawa itself. Especially noteworthy was the close support that naval gunfire
vessels provided the ground forces and the close air support furnished by Army,
Navy, and Marine aircraft.

Capture of Okinawa and other positions in the Ryukyus gave the Allies both
air and naval bases within easy striking distance of Japan. By early May fighter
planes from Okinawa had begun flights over Japan, and as rapidly as fields became
available bombers, including units from the Southwest Pacific Area, came forward
to mount attacks in preparation for the invasion of the home islands. The forward
anchorages in the Ryukyus permitted the Pacific Fleet to keep in almost continuous
action against Japanese targets. The Ryukyus campaign had brought Allied forces
in the Pacific to Japan's doorstep.

The American Effort in China, Burma, and India

While American forces in the Pacific, under the unified direction of the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, made spectacular advances, the Allied effort in Southeast
Asia bogged down in a mire of conflicting national purposes. The hopes Americans
held, in the early stages of the war, that Chinese manpower and bases would
play a vitally important role in the defeat of Japan were doomed to disappointment.
Americans sought to achieve great aims on the Asiatic mainland at small cost,
looking to the British in India and the Chinese, with their vast reservoirs
of manpower, to carry the main burden of ground conflict. Neither proved
capable of exerting the effort the Americans expected of them.

Early in 1942 the United States had sent General Stilwell to the Far
East to command American forces in China, Burma, and India and to serve as Chief
of Staff and principal adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of Nationalist
China and Allied commander of the China theater. Stilwell's stated mission was
"to assist in improving the efficiency of the Chinese Army." The Japanese
conquest of Burma, cutting the last overland supply route to China, frustrated
Stilwell's designs, for it left a long and difficult airlift from Assam to Kunming
over the high peaks of the Himalayas as the only remaining avenue for the flow
of supplies. The Americans assumed responsibility for the airlift, but its development
was slow, hampered by a scarcity of transport planes, airfields, and

--522--

trained pilots. Not until late in 1943 did it reach a monthly capacity of 10,000
tons, and in the intervening months few supplies flowed into China. The economy
of the country continually tottered on the brink of collapse, and the Chinese
Army, although it was a massive force on paper, remained ill organized, ill
equipped, poorly led, and generally incapable of offensive action.

Stilwell thought that the only solution was to retake Burma and reopen the
land supply line to China, and this became the position of the U.S. Joint Chiefs
of Staff. To achieve the goal Stilwell undertook the training and equipping
of a Chinese force in India that eventually consisted of three divisions, and
sought to concentrate a much larger force in Yunnan Province in China and to
give it offensive capability. With these two Chinese forces he hoped to form
a junction in north Burma, thus re-establishing land communications between
China and India. Stilwell's scheme became part of the larger plan, ANAKIM, that
had been approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Casablanca Conference.
Neither the British nor the Chinese, however, had any real enthusiasm for ANAKIM,
and in retrospect it seems clear that its execution in 1943 was beyond the capabilities
of forces in the theater. Moreover, Chiang was quite dilatory in concentrating
a force in Yunnan; Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault, commanding the small American
air force in China, urged that the Hump air line should be used to support an
air effort in China, rather than to supply Chinese ground forces. Chennault
promised amazing results at small cost, and his proposals attracted President
Roosevelt as well as the British and the Chinese. As an upshot, at the TRIDENT
Conference in May 1943, the amphibious operation against Rangoon was canceled
and a new plan for operations emerged that stressed Chennault's air operations
and provided for a lesser ground offensive in central and northern Burma. Under
this concept a new road would be built from Ledo in Assam Province, India, to
join with the trace of the old Burma Road inside China. The Americans assumed
responsibility for building the Ledo Road in the rear of Chinese forces advancing
from India into Burma.

Logistical difficulties in India, however, again delayed the opening of any
land offensive and kept the airlift well below target figures. Until the supply
line north from Calcutta to the British and Chinese fronts could be improved--and
this job took well over a year--both air and ground operations against the Japanese
in Burma were handicapped. In October 1943 Chinese troops under Stilwell did
start to clear northern Burma, and in the spring of 1944 a U.S. Army unit of
regimental size, Merrill's Marauders, spearheaded new offensives to secure the
trace for the overland road. But Myitkyina, the key point in the Japanese defenses
in north Burma, did not fall until August 2 and by that time the effort in Burma
had been relegated to a subsidiary role.

--532--

After the SEXTANT Conference in late 1943, in fact, the American staff no longer
regarded it as probable that the overland route to China could be opened in
time to permit Chinese forces to drive to the coast by the time American
forces advancing across the Pacific reached there. While the Americans insisted
on continuing the effort to open the Ledo Road, they now gave first priority
to an air effort in China in support of the Pacific campaigns. The Army Air
Forces, in May 1944, started to deploy the first of its B-29 groups to airfields
in East China to commence bombing of strategic targets in Korea, Manchuria,
and Japan. At the same time, Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force was directed to
stockpile supplies for missions in support of Pacific forces as they neared
the China coast. Again these projects proved to be more than could be supported
over the Hump air line, particularly since transports had also to be used to
supply the ground effort of both British and Chinese forces. Then the Japanese
reacted strongly to the increased air effort and launched a ground offensive
that overran most of the existing fields and proposed air base sites in east
China. Both air and ground resources inside China had to be diverted to oppose
the Japanese advance. The B-29's were removed to India in January 1945, and
two months later were sent to Saipan where the major strategic bombing offensive
against Japan was by that time being mounted. In sum, the air effort in China
without the protection of an efficient Chinese Army fulfilled few of the goals
proclaimed for it.

To meet the crisis in east China, President Roosevelt urged Chiang to place
his U.S. supported armies under the command of General Stilwell; Chiang eventually
refused and asked for Stilwell's recall, a request the President honored. In
September 1944, Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer replaced Stilwell as Chief of
Staff to Chiang and commander of American forces in the China Theater; a separate
theater in India and Burma was created with Lt. Gen. Dan I. Sultan as its commanding
general. The command issue was dropped and the American strategy in China became
simply one of trying to realize at least something from previous investments
without additional commitments.

Ironically enough, it was in this phase, after the Pacific advances had outrun
those in Southeast Asia, that objects of the 1942 strategy were realized, in
large part because the Japanese, hard-pressed everywhere, were no longer able
to support their forces in Burma and China adequately. British and Chinese forces
advanced rapidly into Burma in the fall of 1944, and, on January 27, 1945, the
junction between Chinese forces advancing from India and Yunnan finally took
place, securing the trace of the Ledo Road. To the south, the British completed
the conquest of central Burma and entered Rangoon from the north early in May.
The land route to China was thus finally secured on all sides, but

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the Americans had already decided that they would develop the Ledo Road only
as a one-way highway, though they did expand the airlift to the point where,
in July 1945, it carried 74,000 tons into China.

With increased American supply support, Wedemeyer was able to make more progress
in equipping and training the Chinese Army. Under his tutelage the Chinese were
able to halt the Japanese advance at Chihchiang in April 1945, and, as the Japanese
began to withdraw in order to prepare a citadel defense of their home islands,
Wedemeyer and the Chinese laid plans to seize a port on the Chinese coast. The
war came to an end, however, before this operation even started and before the
training and equipping of a Chinese Army was anywhere near completion. Chiang's
forces commenced the reoccupation of their homeland still, for the most part,
ill equipped, ill organized, and poorly led.

The Japanese Surrender

During the summer of 1945, Allied forces in the Pacific had stepped up the
pace of their air and naval attacks against Japan. In June and July carrier-based
planes of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and U.S. Army Air Forces planes from the Marianas,
Iwo Jima, and Okinawa struck the Japanese home islands continuously. During
July Pacific Fleet surface units bombarded Japan's east coast, and in the same
month a British carrier task force joined in the attack. Planes from the Philippines
hit Japanese shipping in the South China Sea and extended their strikes as far
as Formosa and targets along the South China coast. American submarines
redoubled their efforts to sweep Japanese shipping from the sea and sever the
shipping lanes from Japan to the Indies and Southeast Asia. Throughout the war,
in fact, submarines had preyed on Japanese merchant and combat vessels, playing
a major role in isolating Japan from its conquests and thereby drastically reducing
Japan's ability to wage war.

After Germany's surrender in May the United States embarked upon a huge logistical
effort to redeploy more than a million troops from Europe, the United States,
and other inactive theaters to the Pacific. The aim was to complete the redeployment
in time to launch an invasion of Japan on November I, and the task had to be
undertaken in the face of competing shipping demands for demobilization
of long-service troops, British redeployment, and civil relief in Europe. By
the time the war ended, some 150,000 men had moved directly from Europe to the
Pacific, but a larger transfer from the United States across the Pacific had
scarcely begun. In the Pacific, MacArthur and Nimitz had been sparing no effort
to expand ports and ready bases to receive the expected influx and to mount
invasion forces. The two commanders were also completing plans

--525--

Atomic Cloud Over Nagasaki

for the invasion of Japan. In the last stage of the war, as all forces converged
on Japan, the area unified commands were replaced by an arrangement that made
MacArthur commander of all Army forces in the Pacific and Nimitz commander of
all Navy forces.

By midsummer of 1945 most responsible leaders in Japan realized that the end
was near. In June, those favoring peace had come out in the open, and Japan
had already dispatched peace feelers through the Soviet Union, a country it
feared might also be about to enter the war despite the existence of a non-aggression
treaty between the two nations. As early as the Tehran Conference in late 1943
Stalin had promised to enter the war against Japan, and it was agreed at Yalta
in February 1945 that the USSR would do so three months after the defeat of
Germany. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 the Soviet Union reaffirmed
its agreement to declare war on Japan. At this conference the United States
and Britain, with China joining in, issued the famed Potsdam Declaration calling
upon Japan to surrender promptly, and about the same time President Truman decided
to employ the newly tested atomic bomb against Japan in the event of continued
Japanese resistance.

Despite the changing climate of opinion in Japan, the Japanese did not immediately
accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Accordingly, on August 6 a lone
American B-29 from the Marianas dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; on the
9th the Soviet Union came into the war and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria;
and on the same day another B-29 dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The
next day Japan sued for peace, and, with the signing of surrender terms aboard
the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, the bitter global war came
to an end.

Retrospect

In winning the Pacific war the Allies had found it unnecessary to press home
their attacks and destroy the Japanese military forces except for the

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Japanese Fleet. By the end of the war Japan's Navy had virtually ceased to
exist; Japanese industry had been so hammered by air bombardment that Japan's
ability to wage war was seriously reduced; and U.S. submarine and air
actions had cut off sources of raw material. At the time of the surrender Japan
still had 2,000,000 men under arms in the homeland and was capable of conducting
a tenacious ground defense; about 3,000 Japanese aircraft were also operational.
Nevertheless, the Japanese could hardly have continued the war for more than
a few months. On the other hand, the fact that an invasion was not necessary
certainly spared many American lives.

The great arbiter of the Pacific war had been American industrial power, which
produced a mighty war machine. Out of this production had come the Pacific Fleet,
a potent force that could overcome the vast reaches of the Pacific upon which
the Japanese had depended so heavily as a defensive advantage. The decisive
combat element of the fleet was the fast carrier task force, which carried the
war deep into Japanese territory and supported advances far beyond the range
of land-based aircraft. Land-based air power also played a decisive part. When
carriers were not available to support offensives, it was land-based aviation
that measured the distance of each forward move. Land-based aviation proved
important as well in providing close support for ground operations, while aerial
supply operations and troop movements contributed greatly to the success of
the Allied campaigns.

Both naval and air forces were dependent upon shore bases, and the war in the
Pacific demonstrated that even in a predominantly naval-air theater, ground
combat forces are an essential part of the offensive team. The Japanese had
also been dependent upon far-flung bases, so that much of the Allied effort
during the war had gone into the seizure or neutralization of Japan's bases.
Thus, the Pacific war was in large measure a war for bases. On the other hand,
the U.S. Pacific Fleet, in one of the greatest logistical developments of the
war, went far in the direction of carrying its bases with it by organizing fleet
trains of support vessels that were capable of maintaining the fleet at sea
over extended periods.

Another important facet of the Pacific war was the development and employment
of amphibious assault techniques, repeatedly demonstrating the need for unified
command. Air, ground, and naval teamwork, supremely important in the struggle
against Japan, occasionally broke down, but the success of the Allied campaigns
illustrates that all three elements achieved it to a large degree. Strategic
air bombardment in the Pacific, designed to cripple Japan's industrial capacity,
did not get under way until well along in 1945. The damage inflicted
on Japanese cities was enormous, but the effect, as in the case of the

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bomber offensive against Germany, remains unsettled, though the bombardment
finally brought home to the Japanese people that the war was lost. The submarine
played a vital role in reducing Japan's capabilities by taking a huge toll of
Japanese shipping and by helping to cut Japan off from the resources of Southeast Asia.

In the final analysis Japan lost because the country did not have the means
to fight a total war against the combination of industrial, air, naval, and
human resources represented by the United States and its Allies. Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Fleet at the outbreak of the war, put his
finger on the fatal weakness of the Japanese concept of the war, when he stated:
"It is not enough that we should take Guam and the Philippines, or even
Hawaii and San Francisco. We should have to march into Washington and sign the
treaty in the White House." This the Japanese could never do, and because
they could not they had to lose the war.